Tyre, city, Palaestra

Palaestra

Palaestra

Next to a Roman bathhouse was often a field where people could train or play games: the palaestra or sport school. Tyre was no exception: immediately south of the City Baths was indeed a palaestra. Nine columns of Egyptian granite are still standing. Still, it was a comparatively small building, measuring only 30x30 meters. For comparison: in Lepcis Magna, the race track in the palaestra, which was surrounded by a colonnade, was 100 meters long.

Phoenician city wall

Beneath Tyre's palaestra, archaeologists have identified two parallel walls, made of sandstone, on which the traces of an ancient fire are still visible. Although we cannot be completely certain, these would appear to have been the walls that were destroyed when Alexander the Great captured the city in the summer of 332.